PwC finds 29% of its most AI-capable workers may leave their employer within a year
Access to the learning and development resources workers say they need fell to 51 percent in 2026, down from 59 percent a year earlier.
PwC's 2026 Global Workforce Hopes and Fears Survey found the shortfall is deepest among the 56 percent of respondents PwC calls "the engine room," workers whose skills are not scarce and who are not far along the AI learning curve.
Two in five of that group say they have the resources they need.
PwC describes the group as less likely to be rewarded for using AI, learning new skills or challenging existing ways of working, even though they are responsible for most day-to-day work within an organization.
Use of AI at work in the past 12 months reached 64 percent, a ten-point increase on the previous year.
Daily generative AI use rose from 14 percent to 22 percent, and 59 percent expect their use of AI tools to increase over the next 12 months.
Daily AI users reported 68 percent confidence in their job security, against 57 percent among infrequent users.
PwC recorded them as more likely to ask for a promotion, by 12 points, to trust top management, by 15 points, and to be confident they can learn new skills, by 21 points.
Only a third of workers report having money left at the end of the month, down 8 percent year on year.
Almost a third, 29 percent, say they have significantly less bargaining power than three years ago, and for fully remote workers the proportion is 10 points higher.
Economic volatility was named the biggest risk to job security by 57 percent, ahead of AI taking on more tasks at 44 percent.
Among workers who have experienced workplace change, 58 percent say there has been more change in the past year than in previous years, and 27 percent say fatigue or burnout limits their productivity.
Pete Brown, global workforce leader at PwC, said in the firm's press release that workers face pressure from rising workloads, change and external uncertainty.
Workers who use AI every day are more confident about their careers, he said, and leaders should keep developing them "but not at the expense of the rest of the workforce."
PwC divides respondents into front-runners at 14 percent, with scarce skills and strong AI capabilities; AI insurgents at 18 percent, whose skills are less scarce but who use AI to deliver more; indispensables at 11 percent, with scarce skills but little progress on AI; and the engine room at 56 percent.
Front-runners over-index on being rewarded for challenging existing ways of working, at 1.5 times the global average, and for learning new skills, at 1.2 times.
Almost a third of that group, 29 percent, say they are very or extremely likely to change employer in the next year.
Brown said in the same release that workers with scarce skills and strong AI capabilities are becoming "more confident and more mobile."
He said more than half of workers are "not yet benefiting from AI and skills in the same way."
Leaders need to consider where they invest in skills, how they let people adapt and how they keep the capabilities they most need, he said.
